Filled with cash.
My mind went blank.
At that moment, I heard the door open downstairs.
“Mom.”
It was his voice.
I ran.
There was Marcus — thinner, more tired, but still my son.
We hugged without speaking for a long time.
Then I asked:
“What kind of life is this?”
He looked at the floor.
Then he whispered:
“Mom… I never really got married.”
I felt the world shatter.
The money wasn’t from a wife.
It wasn’t from a happy life.
He had given up ten years of his life to earn it.
He wasn’t a husband.
He wasn’t free.
He was a man trapped in a contract — and he still had two years left.
If he broke it early, he would have to pay back nearly a million dollars.
That was why he never came home.
That was why the house had no life in it.
That was why there were no photos.
